Significance of the blue winter rose vision for Jon and Arya
A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
Symbolism in-universe
The clearest references we read regarding the blue winter rose is during Ned’s POV:
He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost. - Eddard XV, AGOT
She had loved the scent of winter roses. - Eddard XV, AGOT
The subject in question here is Lyanna Stark, and we know that Ned found her in a bed of blood and roses. Rhaegar Targaryen crowned Lyanna as his Queen of Love and Beauty with blue winter roses.
As a result, blue winter roses in-canon are generally associated with Lyanna Stark.
Significance of ‘sweetness’
Throughout the series, ‘sweet’ smells carry associations with death, especially in Dany’s chapters.
Some instances in just the first book include Drogo’s wound which eventually kills him:
A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT
And Dany’s memory of Ser Willem Darry’s death:
He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. - Daenerys I, AGOT
Lyanna and Jon
Lyanna’s love and association for blue winter roses was established earlier. The wall of ice is the Wall itself, representing Jon as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and his current whereabouts. At one level of reading, the rose growing out of the wall refers to the truth of Jon’s parentage, the crack - or chink - that shatters the illusion of his identity as the Bastard of Winterfell. The sweet smell could represent the death of Lyanna in bringing him into the world.
Lyannaand Arya
The two Stark characters canonically associated with flowers are Lyanna and Arya. Both are shown to have a great love for them:
One day [Arya] came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. - Sansa I, AGOT
Then to Sansa [Arya] said, “When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before.’ - Sansa I, AGOT
"I bring her flowers when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was … fond of flowers.” - Eddard I, AGOT
Lyanna and Arya are the only Stark women to resemble each other too:
“You remind me of [Lyanna] sometimes. You even look like her.” - Arya II, AGOT
Lyanna and Arya are also said to be very pretty / beautiful themselves, confirmed through other characters.
Lyanna had only been sixteen, a child-woman of surpassing loveliness. - Ned I, AGOT
“I’m sorry I tore the acorn dress too. It was pretty.” / “Yes, child. And so are you.” - Arya IV, ASOS
“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. - Arya II, AGOT
“Or would you sooner be a courtesan, and have songs sung of your beauty?” - Arya II, AFFC
Bael the Bard’s story
“North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark’s own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he’d made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. ‘All I ask is a flower,’ Bael answered, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell.”
“Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o’ the winter roses be plucked for the singer’s payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished … and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain.”
“The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says … though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what’s certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he’d plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark.” - Jon VI, ACOK
The story of Bael the Bard above is told to Jon by Ygritte, and its symbolism runs parallel to Lyanna’s own story.
Lyanna and the daughter of Lord Brandon Stark both fell in love and disappeared with their supposed kidnappers, going as far as giving them a son. Rhaegar and Bael were both singers. Lyanna and Lord Brandon’s daughter are both associated with blue winter roses, and the fact that Bael the Bard’s son became Lord Stark is solid foreshadowing for Jon becoming King in the North.
The blue winter roses are also defined as the rarest of flowers, a very specific type that so far in canon, is only grown in the North.
Arya is the only Stark woman to bear the classic traits of House Stark:
Jon had their father’s face, as she did. They were the only ones. Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickon all took after the Tullys. - Arya I, AGOT
Her own children had more Tully about them than Stark. Arya was the only one to show much of Ned in her features. - Catelyn VI, ACOK
The Stark look is specifically Northern, compared to the Southern Tully appearance that everyone but Jon and Arya - and therefore Lyanna - have:
Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.” - Jon I, AGOT
Like the blue winter rose, Lyanna and Arya are a rare type of Northern beauty in that they are the only women in their time to look like the North and are canonically beautiful themselves. The Stark daughter in Bael’s story does not have her appearance described, but the Starks have bore their classic traits for generations and we can assume that she would have had a resemblance to Lyanna and Arya.
Blue winter roses are also called precious in Ygritte’s story. Arya is described as precious by the Northern Lords:
“What do you think passes through their heads when they hear the new bride weeping? Valiant Ned’s precious little girl.” - The Turncloak, ADWD
Symbolism in literature
In literature, roses are generally linked to love and romance. This can possibly be explained by the Greek myth of Adonis and Aphrodite. When Adonis died in Aphrodite’s arms as she wept; the first red roses were said to have sprung up from his blood as it soaked into the earth, staining the nearby white roses a deep crimson. The idea of the red rose came imply such love that transcends death and lives on beyond the lovers’ own short lives.
Roses also have an ancient association with discretion and secrets. The Latin expression sub rosa (literally ‘under the rose’) denotes something said under the veil of secrecy.
Desire and love:
“The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son.” - Jon VI, ACOK
Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it. - The Kingbreaker, ADWD
What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister? - Jon VI, ADWD
The veil of secrecy, sub rosa:
Bael and Lord Stark’s daughter hid in the crypts of Winterfell.
“Bael had brought her back?” / “No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. - Jon VI, ACOK
Rhaegar had Lyanna hidden in the Tower of Joy.
He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood. - Eddard X, AGOT
It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory. - Eddard X, AGOT
Jon plans on sending Arya to hide in Essos once she’s been rescued.
The best solution he could see would mean dispatching her to Eastwatch and asking Cotter Pyke to put her on a ship to someplace across the sea, beyond the reach of all these quarrelsome kings. - Jon IX, ADWD
The sweetness of death + the unattainable
The significance of sweetness in relation to death was mentioned above, but death comes for both the men whom the Stark daughters loved, and for two of the Stark daughters themselves. The ‘unattainable’ symbolism of the roses is reflected in these tragic loves cut short by their separation.
Bael, Rhaegar and Jon are all slain, partially because of the consequences of stealing (or attempting to steal) the three Stark women from Winterfell.
Bael was slain for being King-Beyond-the-Wall, but by the son that he’d born with the stolen daughter of Lord Stark.
“Thirty years later, when Bael was King-beyond-the-Wall and led the free folk south, it was young Lord Stark who met him at the Frozen Ford … and killed him, for Bael would not harm his own son when they met sword to sword.” - Jon VI, ACOK
Rhaegar was slain by Robert for stealing Lyanna, in a war waged against his father, King Aerys II.
Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman’s name - Daenerys IV, ACOK
Jon was slain by his brother in black for his decisions as Lord Commander, partially for allowing the freefolk through the Wall, and partially because he was willing to break his vows to steal / save Arya.
Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold … - Jon XIII, ADWD
The connection between Jon and Arya here regarding Bael’s story is when Jon sends Mance Rayder to infiltrate Winterfell to save (an imposter, but what he believes to be) Arya. Mance uses the tale as inspiration and even pretends to be a musician called "Abel” which is an anagram for Bael. Jon, through Mance, is attempting to steal “Arya” from her (metaphorical and literal) marriage bed, much like Bael the Bard did with Lord Brandon’s daughter.
A story of towers
Lord Brandon’s daughter and Lyanna all die in and around a tower.
When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael’s head upon his spear, she threw herself from a tower in her grief. - Jon VI, ACOK
He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood. - Eddard X, AGOT
Arya has not died nor is dying in a tower anywhere, but she does have these thoughts when listening to a song very similar to Bael’s story:
He is a man of the Night’s Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince.- Cat of the Canals, AFFC
Bael and Rhaegar died before their respective Stark loves. Arya, as the third iteration of the story, breaks the mold and is potentially foreshadowed to take vengeance for Jon’s death, the way her predecessors were unable to.
Jon, Arya, and GRRM’s rule of thirds
A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
The blue flower, as evidenced above, represents Lyanna Stark - but it also carries associations with the rebellious daughters of Stark, Arya being the third and final, following GRRM’s rule of thirds.
The wall of ice represents Jon Snow, who also serves as the connection for all three stories coming together. He hears Bael’s story, has Bael’s blood, is Lyanna’s son, and dies for breaking his vows to save Arya.
The air of sweetness represents death: Bael’s and Lord Stark’s daughter’s, Lyanna and Rhaegar’s, and eventually Jon’s own. But Jon and Arya are again, GRRM’s third and final parallel, and are thus the subversion of death and the maiden, as an in-depth analysis here describes.
How this manifests in their ending is still yet to be seen, but Bael and his Stark maiden, Lyanna and Rhaegar, all had sons who ruled the North after them, even if they don’t believe it themselves and think it’s for others.
“You,” Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, “will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon.” / Arya screwed up her face. “No,” she said, “that’s Sansa.” - Eddard V, AGOT
“King,” croaked the raven. The bird flapped across the solar to land on Mormont’s shoulder. “King,” it said again, strutting back and forth. / “I think he means for you to have a crown, my lord.” - Jon I, ACOK
My half of an art trade with Nora, who wanted something with Jon Snow and Arya Stark. Apparently whenever I hear the words “art trade” my brain decides to try something really complicated like making a gif or a wordless comic. The later panels are sketchier because it’s a metaphor reflecting Arya’s emotional state. It has nothing to do with me running out of patience why would you think something like that?
Nora, I hope you like it :) I’m sorry I lack patience and can’t keep proportions consistent between panels.
Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind.
—Jon Snow
“Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”
—Eddard Stark
Arya finally fits into Lyanna’s dress, and Jon notices her resemblance to the woman from his dreams. A kind-of-sequel inspired by @blndraws beautiful Valentines comic
If Arya ever meets Lady Stoneheart in the Riverlands upon returning to Westeros, she may learn the contents of Robb’s will and obtain a particular object her undead mother has been holding onto. And once she reaches North (with Nymeria of course) and finally reunites with Jon… “I have something for you.”
Yes, yes, I love it! This is so cute ❤️. Even in the first book we see that puppy Nymeria and Ghost were fond of each other—Ghost would greet Nymeria with a little nip on the ear, and Nymeria wanted to follow him and Jon when Arya has to return to face Septa Mordane.
